Avatar: Fire and Ash
- Ben Pivoz
- a few seconds ago
- 3 min read
The Avatar franchise is a strange beast. It is a super successful series, earning several billion dollars, that nobody really seems to be all that passionate about. Besides James Cameron, anyway. People see them, though I never hear anyone talking about them. They are visually creative, beautiful to look at, yet totally forgettable and derivative in literally every other way. That was still enough to make Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water well worth seeking out in theaters. Nevertheless, I wondered when the joy of exploring Pandora would stop being enough. The answer turns out to be approximately 45 minutes into the third entry.
Avatar: Fire and Ash (188 minutes, without the end credits) just does not have much to add to an already shallow series. The world is still cool, but we’ve now explored it pretty thoroughly. And there is nothing to the narrative or extremely uninteresting characters to cover for that. It is certainly well-made. Cameron is quite adept when it comes to utilizing the latest technology in new ways. Yet these spectacles are so bloated, despite having nothing of substance to them at all. There isn’t anything to ground the viewer emotionally.
I feel no connection to the world, mythology or Sully family. It is standard fantasy epic stuff and, to be honest, it is boring. The thrills come from the visuals. Those continue to be stunning, for sure. However, there isn’t much here Cameron hasn’t already put on display in the previous two. It might be in his best interest to move his quest to wow audiences with inventive filmmaking techniques onto something different.
Contrary to its complete lack of intrigue, there is a lot going on in Fire and Ash. Jake Sully and his Na’vi family, including the human child Spider, are at war with the military led by the Na’vi reincarnation of the evil Col. Quaritch. This time, Quaritch teams up with the warrior fire tribe the Magkwan so he can kill Jake and reunite with Spider, who was the human Quaritch’s son. There are also a ton of dull subplots involving Jake’s kids and some pointless military infighting. It all adds up to way less than the sum of its many parts.
Credit where it is due, the screenplay does introduce one interesting character. That is Varang, the leader of the Magkwan. She is a brutal, relentless warrior who only cares about spreading her tribe’s power. She will gleefully kill whoever stands in her way. Varang is brilliant at what she does and vicious. Raising her up to major villain alongside Quaritch is definitely the right idea, considering that he outlived his usefulness even before he was killed off in the original. Unfortunately, Varang’s position there is short-lived, as she is quickly relegated to his sidekick. It is such a waste of the one actually new thing Fire and Ash has to offer. She brings an entirely different perspective than any of the other beings we have met on Pandora. It is a shame so little is done with it.
The other characters have gotten less engaging with time. Jake spends most of the movie worrying about his kids, without an arc of his own. Neytiri, mourning the loss of their son in The Way of Water, is angry and sad with no nuance. Spider is now the center of the plot, even though he says and does absolutely nothing of note. He is kind of a terrible character who becomes important because of a rudimentary theme the screenplay clumsily insists on.
Fire and Ash, like the prior Avatar movies, is nice to look at. That elevated the first two, with the world and action sequences feeling fresh, in spite of the story. Now, the novelty has worn off and all we’re left with is pretty spectacle and nothing else. The well has run dry. Time for James Cameron to try something new.
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2¾ out of 5
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Cast:
Sam Worthington as Jake
Stephen Lang as Quaritch
Jack Champion as Spider
Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri
Sigourney Weaver as Kiri
Britain Dalton as Lo’ak
Oona Chaplin as Varang
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Directed by James Cameron
Screenplay by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver